Washington Post Special Report: Breakaway Wealth

Sorry. The original question was about outsourcing.

You could pay a CEO less money. It wouldn't make the company go out of business (though a bad CEO might run it into the ground).

But, paying the CEO less isn't going to mean any more money in the pocket of the guy who processes, pasteurizes and packages the milk. If anything, the shareholder will get a little more.

But the article aims to gin up anger from the worker, as if the CEO is taking money out of his pocket. That's not what's happening.

Punishing CEOs will do nothing for the average worker.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the move toward offshore operations began when top income tax rates dropped below 50 percent and executives realized that by showing profit to shareholders they could make fortunes into the billions.

 

That may be but how does raising the top tax rate to 90 percent bring those jobs back?

The labor is still cheaper overseas no matter how high the tax rate is.

Now if you're really only interested in punishing people for being rich, well then this is probably a good idea...

 

You don't think a global economy/competition coupled with modern communications, supertankers, modern supply chain advances, cheap energy, computers, environmental regulations, labor costs, etc. had more to do with the shift in jobs overseas?

Plus, now an executive can jump on a plane and go check out his factory anywhere in the world and be there in 24 hours. And he get get there in relative comfort.

 

They put the profits that would go toward the CEO back to the investors, and the workers.

 

The jobs aren't coming back. That train has definitely left the station. As long as it's possible to make billions instead of mere millions by paying some poor foreign schlep in a sweatshop $3 a day, instead of paying a decent living wage to an American worker, then that's the way it's going to be.

 

To the investors, maybe. To the workers, not a chance.

And again, why should somebody who earned more than $5 million only get to keep 10 percent of it? Not everybody in that bracket is a CEO of a multinational corporation.

 

$23 an hour is almost $50,000 a year. And that's for somebody who probably doesn't have a college degree.

That's not a livable wage?

 

What I mentioned has been glossed over, so I'll remention it. America is the top market for pretty much all products. Why would companies take jobs from Americans so they can't buy their products as readily?

 

That $23 an hour job is a pretty extreme exception nowadays, dontcha think? Most of the manufacturing jobs left pay much less than that.

And the only reason that particular job hasn't been outsourced is probably because it's logistically impossible.

 

If you have a family, it's probably isn't. You certainly won't be able to save anything.

 

I'm not sure you understand how income tax brackets work.